The birthday morning broke over Boardwalk with a brilliant sunrise, accented by some lingering clouds.
We carted our luggage out to the Buick and went to Boardwalk Bakery to score some breakfast, where we met up with some tough birds. 
The plan was to head for Disney/MGM Studios and once inside I checked with Guest Services and got Suzie a special Disney "It's My Birthday" pin. The first one to notice the pin was Cruella deVille! 
We were just taking a few photos
of her when she said to Suzie "Dahling, you're not just going to walk away and miss the best birthday present of your life! Come over here!" Cruella had just finished brushing off her coat after a child mistakenly tried to hug her, and must have been in a good mood. She posed for several photos with Suzie.
Cruella also noticed Suzie had on two birthday buttons and advised 
"I would get rid of the one with the rats on it!" You can never be too much in character. ;)
Next on our short agenda was Rock and Roller Coaster (Suzie's favorite) but the plan didn't include me drinking two large draft beers the evening before. Oh well, tough it out and ride with Aerosmith I guess. Wow, R&R coaster had a wait time of only 5 minutes! The G-Force studio attendant saw Suzie and yelled "You! Stop!!!", then got everyone to turn around and look while he sang her a two bar birthday song. 
He let us go to the head of the line and the studio doors opened immediately! 
I survived R&R and our photo was even pretty good. 
We had a FastPass for Voyage of the Little Mermaid 
(my favorite, except for maybe Beauty & the Beast), took in "One Man's Dream" (the Walt Disney story) 
and went to Tower of Terror, 
where I sensibly begged off the ride for the very first time (how embarrassing)!
By now we were about out of time because we had an appointment with a ship! WDW to Port Canaveral took less than an hour (not counting a stop at the liquor store down the road from the cruise terminal). 
Yep, we must be on the right road! 
We parked 
took more photos 
filled out forms in the terminal 
and boarded in about 15 minutes, then walked into the ships main atrium 
with our mouths hanging open! I had seen photos of the Disney Wonder but like photos of the national parks, it still doesn't prepare you for the real thing. The ship is just beautiful!
We found our stateroom 
,dropped off our luggage and checked out the view from our verandah. 
We were just aft of midship on the starboard side, once out of port it would be a really good view.
Speaking of starboard and port, here is how you find your way around the ship, 
blue is forward, red is aft. or is it blue/starboard, red/port? Or should I just go to the starboard bar and drink some port? ;)
We saw that a buffet was going on for only about another 20 minutes so we quickly went up to Beach Blanket Buffet, 
one of the many restaurants on the ship. After our late lunch it was time for the lifeboat drill 
then we started to think about heading up for the Bon Voyage party.
About this time we met Alex, our stateroom host. His style suited ours perfectly, Alex was there when we needed something and otherwise left us with plenty of privacy. We never got a photo of Alex, it seemed he was always working! Now all good stateroom hosts know how to make towel animals and Alex was good, very good! More of that later...
A rapidly approaching storm 
moved the Bon Voyage party inside with the first good lightning flash! In the atrium, the party was more noise than fun so we went back to our room to start in on the now cold champagne, and saw it was raining in a grand way, at about a 30 degree angle! 
It was 5:00, time to depart so Captain Henry sounded the horn (we smiled big time upon hearing it) and we were off! One brave soul wearing large Mickey gloves stood in the driving rain outside the terminal to wave us off! 
Bon Voyage!
The rain let off not long after we were past the last coastal buoy, with bright rays of sun between the clouds. 
A few more hits of champagne and it was time for the first onbaord show, Hercules - the MUSE-ical.
Before the show Captain Henry 
introduced himself to the audience, along with a few key members of the crew. About this time we started crossing the Gulf Stream and the ship, on otherwise very calm seas, began to roll appreciably! Chip & Dale 
even made light of it on stage, leaning to one side and then the other, then laughing it up!
Hercules was a great show, 
funny, timely, and with some fine performances, especially from the (five) muses 
Pain & Panic 
and Hades. 
But hey, no time to linger, it's time to get dressed up for our dinner at Triton's! 
Now *this* met (and exceeded) our expectations of dining on the Disney Wonder! Our servers, Dale 
(no, not the chipmunk) (from Jamaica) and Luzanne (from South Africa) 
introduced themselves and then proceeded to recommend and bring us some most excellent drinks and meals. Meantime, a group of servers went from table to table, singing birthday, anniversary, and honeymoon songs (which all sounded suspiciously the same) but I told Dale I thought Disney could do better than that. Bless his heart, Dale did just that, making Suzie a napkin hat that looked pretty close to mouse ears! 
Ok, we already had a few drinks by then... ;) Dale and Luzanne were our servers through the voyage and you will see more of them! ;)
After dinner the long day caught up wth us and we headed back to our stateroom. We managed a few photos on the verandah but Captain Henry had the ship cranked up by then and Suzie's hair was pretty windblown outside, maybe she will let me post one of the photos later.. My hair is usually about the same no matter what. ;) 
Alex had created two towel swans, forming a heart, for us to come 'home' to. 
Quite a first day!